In Want of a Wife

by Jo Goodman

  Morgan Longstreet had a narrow chin, defined cheekbones, a sharply drawn jaw that made his facial muscles jump when he set it tightly, and blue-and-gray-flecked green eyes that could be implacable, impenetrable, or inviting. Jane had observed all of that. In turn she had felt small, slighted, or swallowed whole, and having felt those things, had vowed not to allow him such influence. It was a familiar promise, one she knew to be easier made than carried out. Guarding one’s thoughts always presented fewer challenges than guarding one’s emotions.

  The door to the washroom opened. In the process of folding a pair of stockings at the bedside, Jane intended to merely glance over her shoulder to acknowledge Morgan’s presence. What she did was stop folding and stare.

  Morgan stood in the open doorway wearing a pair of flannel drawers and nothing else. The damp towel slung around his neck did not qualify as any sort of substantial garment. Droplets of water clung to the shaggy tips of his hair, darkening it. He had not carried a comb with him. The runnels made by passing his fingers through his hair were visible. He leaned one naked shoulder against the door frame and held each end of the towel in his fists.

  He gestured toward the bed with his chin. “Is that all of it?”

  Jane tore her eyes away from the marble statue come to life and looked back at the bed. Most of the contents of her bags were strewn across the coverlet. What wasn’t there was occupying the space on the dresser that he had ceded to her. “I have not opened the trunk.”

  Morgan’s eyebrows lifted. He looked at the wardrobe already in the room, and then he looked around the room. “Another cupboard would fit over there next to the window.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “There’s one in the loft. I’ll measure first. If it will fit, I’ll get Jake to help me bring it down tomorrow. There’s one in the room next door, but it’s too small for what I’m imagining you’re going to lift out of that trunk.” His eyes swept the bed again. “You have a magician’s flair. How many scarves do you reckon you still have up your sleeve?”

  “Don’t concern yourself with the scarves.” She pointed to the top of the wardrobe where her hat rested. “But have a care for the rabbit.”

  The right corner of his mouth creased. The crescent-shaped scar whitened. “There’s some sass in you, Jane.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Sass,” he repeated. “Maybe they don’t call it sass where you’re from.”

  “I know the word. I didn’t know if I heard you correctly.”

  “I see.”

  Jane finished rolling the stockings in her hand, set them down, and picked up another pair. “Cousin Frances said I was impudent.”

  “‘Sassy’ sounds better.”

  Jane smiled. “I believe you are right.”

  Morgan pushed away from the door frame. “Mostly I am.”

  Jane looked up to see if his wry grin was in place. It wasn’t. She could not make out if he was stating a fact or poking fun at her. She hoped it was the latter; she could not abide arrogance.

  “I’ll get my things out of the washroom,” he said. “And clear out that top drawer. Unless you think you can squeeze most of what you have there into it.”

  She shook her head. “No, there are immutable laws of physical science that apply here.”

  “You’re talking about the conservation of matter.”

  Jane nodded slowly. “I am.”

  “You can’t fit a pig through a straw without turning her into sausage first.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” There was no mistaking his grin now.

  “How about I just move my things, like I said.”

  “That would be fine. Thank you.”

  Morgan opened the drawer, scooped out the contents, and held them against his chest with one arm. He returned to the washroom, collected his clothes with his free hand, and then padded out barefoot.

  Jane could hear him moving around in the bedroom next door. They were engaged in similar activities, folding, smoothing, hanging, sorting. She suspected she completed her tasks with more care, but when she finished before he did, she wondered if she had been mistaken.

  When she entered the washroom, Jane discovered that Morgan had set out a towel, washcloth, and sponge. The basin was empty, and she realized he must have tossed the water he used out the small window. She poured fresh cold water into the bowl before she stripped down to her shift. It felt as if she washed away a week’s worth of grit, when in reality she had bathed only that morning in a tub at the Pennyroyal with hot and cold running water. Less than twenty-four hours had passed, and she was already reflecting fondly on that memory. She thought she probably should not mention it, even in passing. It was quite possibly the sort of thing that would have Morgan questioning his decision to marry her.

  She thought he probably already was, perhaps from the exact moment they had finished exchanging vows. He had not kissed her. He had avoided it, in fact. When Pastor Robbins had given him leave to do so, Morgan had done nothing. She had covered the awkward moment by leaning into him and pressing her cheek against his, and for then it was enough.

  It was not enough now, but when she stepped back into the bedroom and saw that Morgan had not returned to say good night, she counted it as a blessing that she was familiar making peace with disappointment.

  Chapter Five

  Morgan lay on his back in bed, head cradled in his hands. His stare alternated between the ceiling and the starlight beyond the window. Light from the bedside lamp flickered. He wondered if Jane had fallen asleep yet. She should have. It had been over an hour since he’d left, and in his estimation she had been ready to fold then. He wished he could say the same for himself.

  What the hell had he been thinking? He did not know a damn thing about women, so why in God’s name had he concluded it was a good idea to marry one? He should have stood behind a mule and taken a kick to the head. He would either be dead or so dumb that the idea of marriage would have been knocked clean out of his mind. Now he was just out of his mind, and he had a woman lying in a bed in the room right next to his to prove it.

  Mrs. Sterling had pulled him aside at the hotel and suggested that he just leave Jane be tonight, that she would be one taut nerve, fatigued, and fearful, and it would be a kindness to let her breathe some before he exercised his conjugal rights. Thinking back on it, Morgan wished he had pressed Ida Mae to be clearer. For instance, should he have included Jane in the decision to sleep apart? Given her an opportunity to tell him that she would have welcomed, or at least tolerated, him in bed? When he had cleared the dresser top, she had suggested they share that space. Maybe if he had asked her, she would have been similarly inclined about the bed.

  And if she had been, would he have taken her up on it? It was true he had some experience with women, but that did not mean he knew them. He recalled Jane’s words. I understand that you’ve had opportunity to beget. He wondered what Jane would have thought if he told her his opportunities had been limited to a few whores, two of whom he paid for a poke, and one who took him upstairs because she felt sorry for him. There was another woman: the one who claimed him first, taught him about a woman’s body and fed his soul. She was seductress, siren, a young boy’s savior. Or so he had thought for a time. And how could he have known differently when she laid waste to his mind and made herself everything to him in and out of bed? Even now, after so many years had passed, it was easier to think of her as a witch than a whore, but he no longer harbored any doubt that she was the latter.

  Morgan had an urge to go to Jane and no idea what he would say to her. If nothing occurred to him when he got to her room, he would have to invent some reason for being there. Just thinking about it seemed like too much trouble.

  It bothered him that he had not kissed her. He should have done that. At the wedding ceremony, the witnesses accounted for his reluctance. Maybe if it had been only the minister, Mrs. Robbins, and Ida Mae, Morgan thought he would have taken the opportunity presented to him, but with Walt, Ted, Cobb,
Buster, and Buster’s mother all looking on, he felt as if he and Jane had become an attraction in a sideshow. The problem was, that excuse did not hold up very well when he considered that he had not even tried to kiss her once they were alone.

  The night had been ripe for it. There was a moment riding back to Morning Star that he thought she might not bolt if he angled his mouth to hers, but the moment came and went as he was plotting it. He had been accused before of thinking too hard and too long, but mostly that had kept him out of trouble. Mostly. He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times.

  He thought about those few moments when he had helped Jane put her hat up. He had stood right behind her, laid his palm on her shoulder. His thumb could have made a pass against her neck. He could have turned her, kept her there against the wardrobe, his arms on either side of her. Maybe she would not have felt trapped. Maybe she would have felt embraced. It was hard to know when he had thought all of it and done none of it.

  Morgan threw off the covers and sat up in bed. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and then swung his legs over the side. He needed to get out of this room, this house. He needed open sky and space that stretched beyond his fingertips. He reached for his pants and began to dress. He was going for a walk, maybe a ride, but he was going.

  Mrs. Sterling might just as well have been talking about him tonight. He was a single stretched nerve, exhausted to the point of restlessness, and about as scared of his wife as any husband had the right to be.

  God. What a mess.

  • • •

  Jane was up before it was light. Her sense from things Morgan had told her was that if she waited for the rooster to announce morning, she had already slept too long. She washed, plaited her hair, put on a robe over her shift, and went to find the privy. It was so dark she walked into the smokehouse first. When she found the outhouse, she knew it.

  Returning to the house, she lit a lamp and set it on the kitchen table. Her first order of business was to become familiar with this area, in particular the cast-iron cookstove. In her experience, a cookstove either possessed a personality or was simply possessed. She had worked with both types and found the former infinitely preferable to the latter.

  Hands on her hips, Jane faced the cookstove and stared it down. “You will not get the best of me,” she whispered. “You will not belch smoke, throw ash, heat unevenly, or burn my biscuits. Know that and we will get along just fine.”

  Jane picked up a blue-and-white checked towel lying beside the sink and wrapped it around her waist before she opened the firebox. It was empty. No kindling had been set for the next fire. Before she did anything else, Jane put covers on the stovetop, closed the front and back dampers, and opened the oven damper. She turned the movable iron grate in the firebox so the ashes fell into the receiver below it. After giving it a shake for good measure, she flipped it over, and then removed the covers from the top. Everything she needed to start the fire was there in a large tin box beside the china cupboard. She imagined that in the future it would be her responsibility to make certain that the box was filled.

  Jane covered the grate with pieces of paper that she tore and twisted in the center and left fanned at the ends. She then covered these with small sticks, mostly pine, and made certain the wood reached the ends of the firebox. She took care with this, arranging it so air would be admitted. Over the kindling, she placed pieces of harder wood and added two small shovelfuls of coal from the scuttle. She replaced the covers, opened the closed dampers, and chose a match from the box on the table. She blinked as the phosphorus and sulfur flared. Her nose twitched at the unpleasant odor, but she bent and set the lighted match under the grate. She wondered if men at the dawn of time had had any more sense of accomplishment than she did creating this fire.

  Now her job was to master it. Jane scoured the kitchen to find the stove black. She located the tin of polish in a drawer with string, tweezers, penny nails, scissors, an eggbeater, brushes, two wooden spoons, an empty flask, cotton balls, and a paring knife. Another challenge, she told herself, but first the cookstove.

  Beginning at the front of the stove, she applied the polish evenly, rubbing it in a circular pattern and working her way to the back while the surface gradually heated. She could not guess when the stove had last received the equal of her attention, perhaps never, but when she was done, she was hopeful that it looked as good as it had upon delivery. She recognized the model. It was not very old, certainly not a relic from the days when Uriah Burdick built the house, but that did not mean that Morgan had purchased it either. Her only hint that he might have came from the fact that it was similar to the cooking stove at the Pennyroyal. It was conceivable that Mrs. Sterling had advised him.

  Jane returned the polish to the drawer, tossed the cleaning rag on the tin box, and checked to see if the wood was thoroughly kindled. When she saw that it was, she added more coal and waited for the blue flame around the coals to change to a white one. It was then that she closed the oven damper. In a few moments, she was able to mostly close the front damper, leaving enough space for oxygen to flow and nourish the fire. Finally, when she was certain there was a good draft and the coals were sufficiently caught, she half closed the chimney damper.

  She could finally appreciate the warmth coming from the stove. What she had felt before was the effect of her own exertions.

  Jane explored the pantry. It was well stocked. She had supposed yesterday that it must be the case because Morgan had had two opportunities to purchase staples in Bitter Springs and had brought nothing back. He impressed her as someone who would not have returned with a bride alone if he was also in want of molasses.

  For some reason, that made Jane smile.

  She measured flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar and then mixed and sifted them over a green glass bowl. From the cold store she took an egg and some fresh, cool milk. She beat the egg in a separate bowl and added the milk. There was no point in mixing them together until someone joined her. She’d have to add more baking powder, spoiling the proportions, and the hotcakes would not taste the way they should. Someone drowning them in butter and syrup might not be able to tell the difference, but she would.

  Jane decided to make coffee. She suspected that would rouse Morgan, and perhaps he would invite his hands to come and sit at his table. She made enough for them. It did not seem right to her to do otherwise.

  Jane found finely ground coffee in an airtight glass jar in the pantry. She measured out a cup for the strainer, returned the strainer to the pot, and put it on the table. She pumped enough water at the sink to fill the kettle and set it on the stove to boil. That left her with time to dress. A shift and robe was not suitable for greeting anyone, even if her husband was the only one who came to the table.

  Jane thought she heard the back door open and close while she was dressing, but she did not give it any thought except to suppose that Morgan was finally up and making his morning visit to the necessary. When she returned to the kitchen and saw him standing at the stove pouring boiling water from the kettle into the coffeepot, she realized that she had been wrong. The door had certainly opened and closed, but he had been coming in, not going out.

  “I will do that,” she said, skirting the table. “I just went to the bedroom to dress.”

  Morgan did not relinquish the kettle, but he did look at her sideways. “I see that. Are all of your dresses like that one?”

  Jane glanced down at herself. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Fancy is what I mean. Sunday fancy. Going-to-a-social fancy.”

  “This?” The dress was apple green calico with white polka dots on the skirt and the hint of a white ruffle around the scooped neckline. The sleeves were plain and fitted, with none of the puffery that was becoming the fashion in the East. Jane wore a corset but deliberately had set aside her bustle. It seemed to her that the appendage had no place here. The hem of her skirt hovered just above her ankles, a good length for walking and working. She thought she
had chosen practically. He thought she had chosen fancy.

  She understood then that she had nothing that he would pronounce suitable.

  “What’s wrong with what I have on?” she asked.

  “It’s pretty. That’s an observation, not a compliment.”

  “I was not in danger of mistaking one for the other.” She left Morgan at the stove and applied herself to making the hotcake batter.

  Morgan looked over at Jane and watched her tie a towel around her waist. “I have no objection to pretty,” he told her. “But it goes against my grain to see it come to a bad end. Someday you’ll look at it and not recollect that it was ever once the color of summer apples or that it had that little ruffle at the neck.”

  “It’s for wearing,” she said, stirring the batter. “It goes against my grain to tuck it in a wardrobe and only visit it from time to time.”

  “Is that right?”

  She looked at him sharply to gauge whether he was mocking her. Unfortunately, he had turned away so that only his profile was visible. “I shall miss the sewing machine I had in New York, but I do well enough with a needle and thread. There is no reason I cannot make one or two aprons, or even a dress. It will merely take longer.”

  “Is that a compromise or an accommodation?”

  “The latter, I think.”

  Morgan nodded. “Coffee’s ready,” he said, removing the pot from the stove. He held it over the table where he had placed two cups. “Can I assume you want some?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He poured coffee into both cups and set the pot on the table. Jane traded places with him at the stove.